Standardized testing will continue to be cornerstone of educational system

Published: Sunday, August 12, 2001

DANETTE BAKERA-J Special Contributor

Test.

The four-letter word can spell despair for students, concern for their parents and even pressures for their teachers. But educational experts say you might as well make it a part of your everyday vocabulary because testing will remain a part of the educational scene.

"We've seen a progression of testing in our state," said Margaret A. Price, Ph.D., assistant professor in Texas Tech's College of Education. "Each one was designed to improve the accountability of educational standards."

Standardized testing, such as the TAAS, has been a state-by-state initiative that, under President Bush's proposed education plan, will increase in coming years. The Fort Worth-Star Telegram reports that the President's plan is built on testing. Bush calls for annual testing of math and reading skills for grades three through eight in every state that receives federal funding. Texas is among the 15 states that already implement Bush's ideas.

"Regardless of what education plan passes, what all this means for us is that we have to decide how to address the testing issue, because it is not going away," said Peggy Johnson, acting associate dean of undergraduate studies for Texas Tech's College of Education. "As teachers and administrators, we need to take a look at ways you can measure standards of achievement through good teaching and curriculum that will help students succeed in those endeavors."

Johnson and Price recently identified other trends in the public educational system to include teaching training, educational relevance and increased educational opportunities.

Traditionally, would-be teachers never saw a classroom in action until their student teaching assignment. Today, they are introduced to the classroom from the start, Johnson said.

Several Tech faculty members convene their classes on public school campuses and Price's students participate in Professional Development School, an arrangement between Tech and Lubbock Independent School District. Through the program, college students meet in LISD junior and senior high school classrooms during the semester and are engaged in extracurricular activities, much like their professional counterparts.

"This gives them field experience to see diversity in the classroom and the type of work that teachers do on a regular basis," Price said.

Johnson added that such programs not only give future teachers opportunities to see real classrooms at work, but also provide opportunities for exchange of ideas and teaching strategies between them and the veteran teachers.

While colleges strive to better prepare teachers, schools remain faced with the task of retaining them. By the year 2010, the U.S. Department of Education estimates it will take about 2.5 million teachers to staff the nation's classrooms, but on average new teachers only stay in the field for about five years.

In addition, a vast number of veteran teachers are reaching retirement age, and the numbers of children reaching school age are increasing.

"Teacher shortage is certainly a trend that we're facing now and will continue to face in the future," Johnson said. "We must develop ways to make teaching more attractive. The numbers of those entering the field are not decreasing, but there is not much incentive for them to stick with it.

"Certainly an increase in salaries comparable to those of other professionals is one way to accomplish that, but we also need to see teaching gain better status among the ways to earn a living."

Undoubtedly, technology has become one of the major trends in education.

"It has given students a world of resources at their finger-tips," Johnson said, which is why teaching strategies have evolved into making the information relevant to students.

"No longer is it necessary to dwell on the factual information because they know how to find that because they grow up techo-savvy," Price said. "Instead, we're teaching them why they need to know the information and its importance in their lives."

Students also benefit when they take an active part in the learning process, Johnson said.

"When they are engaged in learning the information, they retain it better and are more apt to want to pursue education beyond their high school years."

In recent years, more teachers are fostering that type of education through cooperative learning.

"This idea of working cooperatively has been a trend in the business world for the last 50 years," Johnson said.

"By integrating it into the classroom, you find students discover a new way to learn, but they also gain life skills by learning to work with others to accomplish a goal."

For example, sixth-graders in Siles Langston's social studies class at Lubbock-Cooper Junior High team up for chariot races and build castles during their studies on Roman culture and medieval times.

"On a national level, you see this trend but on a much greater scale," Price said.

For example, many schools are adopting team teaching strategies where interdisciplinary teams of usually five teachers in the middle school setting work together for student and classroom management and to increase parental involvement.

"Such arrangements help students understand, for example, how math relates to English because those teachers are using other subject matter within their own curriculum," Price explained. "But one of the greatest benefits is that you get a better opportunity to know and communicate with parents about their children and with other teachers."

Classrooms also are becoming heterogeneous populations in that you have a more realistic learning environment where students of all intellectual abilities are taught together, she added.

"Through that, you create a diverse learning environment more reflective of what students will find in society."

Technology also has opened educational doors to more people, Johnson said.

"Distance learning can provide access to various subjects that once were unfathomable, especially to smaller districts without the financial resources to offer them," she explained.

And educational opportunities as a whole are becoming available to more people on a wider scale, she added.

"There has for years been this prevailing idea that we need to reach all children  especially those with special learning needs or economic challenges, but now the concept is to extend their learning past the high school level."

Price also defined other trends on the horizon:

1. Parent and community involvement. One way school districts have involved those outside the school personnel is with the creation of site-based management committees, Price said. Such committees, comprised of school officials, teachers, parents and community members, are charged with making certain decisions affecting the educational endeavors of their respective districts.

According to the April 2000 issue of "Educational Leadership," a publication of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, the idea of site-based management has grown in popularity over the past decades with more than one-third of school districts nationwide implementing some version of the process between 1986 and 1990; many other districts have since formed such committees as well.

2. Full-service schools. By day, they house classrooms to teach students; but after school hours, any number of social agencies move in to offer services from literacy classes and adult education to medical, dental and family needs. Price said one such school in College Station began operating as such with funding from the Danforth Foundation.

"These are more prevalent in the larger school districts such as in New York and East St. Louis, but certainly could prove beneficial in some of our rural areas," Price said.